You may be hearing on the AP about how Sarah Palin brought her kids with her for official gov. functions, which is OK, I guess, but she made Alaska pay for it, not OK.This is cautionary news to be heeded when deciding on surgery for your child. Anesthesia can deplete b12, especially you have have a variant of the MTHFR gene (variants A and C are very common). Surprise, our son has a variant, he had to have a ton of surgeries as a baby...and guess what, his B12 levels are very low and he has autism. Google MTHFR--it's an easy test you can have done at any lab and if you are considering conceiving, you may need more folic acid. It's a folate reductase gene, which meanas you may have trouble processing folate.
So, I don't know if we could have done anything differently with our son given the urgency of the situation, and we're glad we said no to adding radiation to the mix (they're finding THAT also causes learning disorders later on). Hello, Hippocrates? FIRST, do no harm. I kind of wish the medical field would focus on that a little more.
From Newswise, the journalists' only site:
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Newswise — A new anesthesiology study analysis presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, indicates a possible link between childhood exposure to general anesthesia and an increased risk of behavioral and developmental disorders in young children.
Recent animal studies have shown that commonly used anesthetic agents may have serious neurotoxic effects on the developing brain. To assess whether the experimental animal data can be applied to humans, Lena S. Sun, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics and colleagues at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health and the Columbia University School of Nursing, performed an analysis of a group of children born into the New York State Medicaid Program between 1999 and 2000.
Over a 4 year period, 625 children under the age of three were exposed to general anesthesia as part of uncomplicated hernia repair. When compared to a random sample of 5,000 children with no history of anesthesia exposure, the children exposed to anesthetic agents were twice as likely to be (subsequently) diagnosed with a developmental or behavior disorder.
“Given that the study subjects were taken from a Medicaid population, one limitation of the data is the demographic factors of this group that may vary from the general population. The excess risk of developmental and behavioral disorders in the children exposed to anesthesia cannot be completely explained by demographic factors or confounding health factors including premature birth or low birth weight.”
Researchers stress the need for more rigorous studies to assess the long-term health effects of exposure to anesthesia in young children. “This current analysis only examined two or three years of post-exposure data. To determine long-term effects of exposure, it is essential to continue and expand the efforts of this study with continued follow-up with the study subjects and design additional studies in which direct neurodevelopmental outcomes could be assessed. It is important to emphasize that given the limitations and preliminary nature of the study, these results should be interpreted with caution; parents should not keep their children from having necessary surgical procedures,” said Dr. Sun.
While a number of animal studies have provided useful direction for further research, it is important to note that animal studies are considered basic science, and their findings do not always translate to the complex physiological system of human beings.
Anesthesiologists: Physicians providing the lifeline of modern medicine. Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists is an educational, research and scientific association with 43,000 members organized to raise and maintain the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology and improve the care of the patient.
For more information visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists Web site at http://www.asahq.org.
I've written before about how you might want to stay away from oral contraceptives, ESPECIALLY if you plan one day to be pregnant--it can really mess up your delicate cycle, possibly permanently. Before you pour chemicals and hormones into your body at someone else's profit, you might want to consider, who's looking out for you? Not the drug companies. From Nerve.Com:
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Rough Patch
by Nicole Ankowski
"Those fucking bastards," I whispered to my boyfriend and cat when I read the article. "They're getting away with it!"
In April, The New York Times brought us a nasty update to the 2005 news that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson had been lying to the public about their Ortho Evra birth-control patch. Marketed as a lower-estrogen birth-control option (meaning fewer and milder side effects than the pill), the patch actually delivered much higher doses of estrogen than the pill; Johnson & Johnson failed to reveal this to the public for six years. At least fifty deaths have been attributed to the patch because of this, with thousands more women reporting alarming symptoms.
And now, Johnson & Johnson is arguing that women hurt by the patch cannot sue, because the FDA approved the patch in the first place.
Rough Patch by Nicole Ankowski "Those fucking bastards," I whispered to my boyfriend and cat when I read the article. "They're getting away with it!" In April, The New York Times brought us a nasty update to the 2005 news that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson had been lying to the public about their Ortho Evra birth-control patch. Marketed as a lower-estrogen birth-control option (meaning fewer and milder side effects than the pill), the patch actually delivered much higher doses of estrogen than the pill; Johnson & Johnson failed to reveal this to the public for six years. At least fifty deaths have been attributed to the patch because of this, with thousands more women reporting alarming symptoms. And now, Johnson & Johnson is arguing that women hurt by the patch cannot sue, because the FDA approved the patch in the first place. read more here. |
The two scientists cited a major study recently presented by Dr. Lennart Hardell of Örebro University in Sweden, which stated that people using cell phones doubled their risk of developing brain cancer and acoustic neuromas, a tumor that damage the hearing nerve.
The study also showed that people who started using cell phone before the age of 20 years were more than five times as likely to develop brain cancer.
The European Parliament recently voted 522 to 16 to urge ministers across Europe to impose stricter limits for exposure to radiation from mobile and cordless phones, wi-fi and other radiation-generating devices -- in part because children are particularly vulnerable to the risk.
Is there a right way to check your breasts for early signs of cancer? Many women remain confused as experts now say there is no evidence that rigorous monthly "self-examination" -- widely recommended in the United States -- reduces breast cancer deaths. Plus, it can lead to unnecessary biopsies.A pretty amazing speech by the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. To see a white union man take on racism this way is very moving. Something truly profound could happen in this election, if we want it to:
